518 Mark Leuchter criticism of the Temple and the post-Josianic Davidic line…both are qualified under the rqç rubric in his famous Temple Sermon (Jer 7,1- 15; cf. vv. 4.8, as well as the critical word-play in v.11 involving David’s patrilineal clan, ≈rp). Like the Temple Sermon, which demanded that the audience consider the events of history with respect to the fall of Shiloh in the 11th century (Jer 7,12, 14), Jeremiah directs his audience to consider the historical reality around them. Esarhaddon’s inscription spoke of a restoration of Babylon, a restoration that history certainly proved to have taken place by 597 – Jeremiah’s citation of independent historical evidence supports his policy of submission to Babylon as theologically legitimate. The competing prophetic voices, by contrast, have no objective criteria to support their claims (54). Between the citation of the Deuteronomic laws and the invocation of the Esarhaddon inscription, the 597 community in Babylon apparently adopted Jeremiah’s perspective on the matter. Jer 24 attests to this, as it possesses significant inter-textual elements that bind it to the 597 collection (55); the vision of the good figs in vv. 4-7 presupposes their acceptance of his message. The acceptance of Jeremiah’s message led to his composition of the atbash codes in Jer 51,1.41, revealing that YHWH would indeed restore those who had been deported. The atbash codes do not revert the 70-year declaration, as is the case with the cuneiform reversion in the Esarhaddon inscription. To do so would be self-defeating, as the larger idea behind the 597 collection was that the exile would persist for generations (cf. Jer 27,7). By emphasizing the lengthy duration of the exile, Jeremiah was taking a stand against the prophets (both in Judah and among the exiles in Babylon) who argued for a brief period of Babylonian domination (56). The sequence of the 70-year (54) Cf. Jer 25,9; 27,6-8; 43,10. The ideological continuity between these verses and the invocation of the Esarhaddon inscription strongly suggest that W.E. Lemke’s conclusion (“Nebuchadrezzar, My Servant”, CBQ 28 [1966] 45- 50) that these verses are only secondary accretions in the Jeremianic corpus be reconsidered. (55) Jer 24 might have been included in this collection, but it more likely served a connective or inter-textual purpose between the 597 collection and the principal Jeremianic materials that were developing between the prophet in Judah and his supporters in Babylon during the period of 597-587. See J.G. MCCONVILLE, Judgment and Promise. An Interpretation of the Book of Jeremiah (Winona Lake 1993) 59, 90-91, 142-144, 147-148. (56) Jeremiah’s hermeneutical method here matches that of the earlier Deuteronomic scribes of Josiah’s court, i.e., the prophet deploys terms of an older